Winner of the 2018 Yale Series of Younger Poets prize How can a search for self‑knowledge reveal art as a site of community? Yanyi’s arresting and straightforward poems weave experiences of immigration as a Chinese American, of racism, of mental wellness, and of gender from a queer and trans perspective. Between the contrast of high lyric and direct prose poems, Yanyi invites the reader to consider how to speak with multiple identities through trauma, transition, and ordinary life. These poems constitute an artifact of a groundbreaking and original author whose work reflects a long journey self‑guided through tarot, therapy, and the arts. Foregrounding the power of friendship, Yanyi’s poems converse with friends as much as with artists both living and dead, from Agnes Martin to Maggie Nelson to Robin Coste Lewis. This instructive collection gives voice to the multifaceted humanity within all of us and inspires attention, clarity, and hope through art-making and community.
Moving backward in time, Dorris's critically acclaimed debut novel is a lyrical saga of three generations of Native American women beset by hardship and torn by angry secrets.
From an award-winning poet comes a collection on heartbreak and transitions, written with a piercing lyric ferocity. FINALIST FOR THE NEW ENGLAND BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY • “Written with great tenderness and intimacy, Dream of the Divided Field reveals what we do (and do not) owe to others, and what we owe to ourselves.”—Poets & Writers The poems in Yanyi’s latest book suggest that we enter and exit our old selves like homes. We look through the windows and recognize some former aspect of our lives that is both ours and not ours. We long for what we had even as we recognize that we can no longer live there. Yanyi conjures the beloved both within and without us: the beloved we believe we know, the beloved who is never the person we imagine, and the beloved who threatens to erase us even as we stand before them. How can we carry our homes with us? Informed by Yanyi’s experiences of immigration, violent heartbreak, and a bodily transition, Dream of the Divided Field explores the contradictions that accompany shifts from one state of being to another. In tender, serene, and ethereal poems, Dream of the Divided Field examines a body breaking down and a body that rebuilds in limitless and boundary-shifting ways. These are homes in memory—homes of love and isolation, lust and alienation, tenderness and violence, suffering and wonder.
In Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts, acclaimed journalist Robert D. Kaplan continues his exploration of the American military's challenging and varied commitments around the world. From protecting sea lanes, to providing disaster relief, to preparing for potential military confrontation with North Korea and Iran, Kaplan describes the astonishing, vital, and often unacknowledged operations regularly performed by American military personnel in the air, at sea, and on the ground. Vivid and illuminating, this book takes us deep into the highly technical and exotic cultures of the armed forces, telling soldiers' stories from the perspective of the troops on the ground.
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Stone Barrington series tells the true story of his journey sailing alone across the Atlantic Ocean. Stuart Woods had never owned more than a dinghy before setting out on one of the world’s most demanding sea voyages, navigating single-handedly across the Atlantic. How, at the age of thirty-seven, did this self-proclaimed novice go from small ponds to the big sea? Now with a new afterword that looks back at how one transatlantic race changed his life, Woods takes readers on a spectacular journey—not just of traveling across the world, but of being tried in fire, learning by accepting challenges, appreciating the beauty of the open water, and living to tell about it.
A story of a crucial, dwindling natural resource: an invisible ocean of fresh water under the High Plains. The Ogallala Aquifer that lies deep beneath the Great Plains from Texas to Colorado contains enough water to fill Lake Erie nine times! Every year five trillion gallons are pumped out for irrigation, and if (or when) the aquifer goes dry, $20 billion worth of food and fiber grown with that irrigation will disappear. William Ashforth tells the fascinating history of the Ogallala from its formation millions of years ago to glimpses of the future when the Great Plains could return to their Sahara Desert-like past.
A landmark book by marine biologist Wallace J. Nichols on the remarkable effects of water on our health and well-being. Why are we drawn to the ocean each summer? Why does being near water set our minds and bodies at ease? In Blue Mind, Wallace J. Nichols revolutionizes how we think about these questions, revealing the remarkable truth about the benefits of being in, on, under, or simply near water. Combining cutting-edge neuroscience with compelling personal stories from top athletes, leading scientists, military veterans, and gifted artists, he shows how proximity to water can improve performance, increase calm, diminish anxiety, and increase professional success. Blue Mind not only illustrates the crucial importance of our connection to water; it provides a paradigm shifting "blueprint" for a better life on this Blue Marble we call home.
"The purpose of this book is to document the naval operations that took place during the American Revolution. These can be divided into two parts: those that took place before the French intervention of 1778, and those that took place thereafter"--Introduction
Professional pilots have a doctorate level of knowledge surrounding aviation. They spend years learning all aspects of aviation from federal regulations, international regulations, communication procedures, emergency procedures, instrument procedures, flight manuals, company manuals, operating procedures, and finally techniques on how to do their job. However there is an emergency procedure which is trained around (crew members learn the beginning, and the end), but very seldom spend time dealing with the real time exercise of what is going to happen in a ditching. All crew members learn how to secure a bad engine. Or handle an electrical malfunction. Or control bleed air in a pneumatics problem. They also train how to exit the aircraft in the water in case of a water landing. And how to climb into rafts and in some cases how to climb into a basket for a helicopter pickup. But few crew members have ever worked through the scenario of engine failure at altitude to water contact. This book begins with the concept that no pilot is too experienced, or too old to learn a new lesson. The concept is best demonstrated by the work of Captain Al Haynes. Captain Haynes was the pilot in command of the severely crippled DC-10 which crash landed in Sioux City in 1989. 184 people survived the landing against all odds. Captain Haynes began a speaking career and many years later a Belgian captain, Eric Gennotte attended one of the talks. In 2003 Captain Gennotte is flying an airbus taking off from Bagdad. The aircraft is struck by a missile and the left engine is afire and portions of the wing are burning off. The airbus loses all hydraulics and control of the flight surfaces. Gennotte flies the jet using techniques taught by Haynes and brings the jet back to the airport for a safe landing. In 2009 we all saw video of a large passenger jet safely land on the Hudson River in New York. Visual proof that water landing can be done. The book also covers many of the other successful ditchings of the last 55 years. The book breaks down ditching training into four phases starting with home study or subjects covered at formal training. The last phases go into deep detail of the last 1000 feet before landing and down to the last 100 feet to contact. The author writes from his experiences of landing a Lake Seawolf in the off-shore environment during a USAF test program. Those experiences allow him to detail exactly what the pilot will see as the aircraft makes the last 1000 feet of the descent. This level of detailed training has never been published before. Pilots today are aware of the 406 megaherts emergency locator transmitter. In the chapter on SARSAT Systems they will learn how the transmitter talks to the satellites which talk to the ground stations which talk to the rescue coordination centers which talk to the mission command centers where rescue forces can be launched. And this system works worldwide to communicate with rescue forces on six continents. If an airframe goes down out over the wide open ocean or up north on an ice pack, who is going to pick up the crew and passengers? The chapter on maritime integration to search and rescue walks through the basic steps of how a coast guard or rescue forces can find a boat on the water to send to the rescue. Included in the book is a sample simulator scenario for training departments. One scenario builds to a quick reaction ditching (on-board fire) and the second scenario build to a drift down ditching (intense hail damage). The scenarios are built for realism and training value. Generic ditching checklists are for crews flying without a prescribed ditch checklist. The book concludes with a glossary of aviation definitions for the layman and the beginning pilots studying ditching. Professional crews crossing the ponds today are well versed in APU, CPDLC, HMG, GMDSS, EICAS, PACOTS, and RVR?but many readers will be lost in the jargon.
